


Without Any Fear (War is Over)

by taramidala



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Fluff, Fluff without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 07:03:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13161762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taramidala/pseuds/taramidala
Summary: The early days of the newly-restored Republic, Jyn and Cassian say goodbye.Written as part of theRebelcaptain Secret Santa Exchange 2017.





	Without Any Fear (War is Over)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yavemiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yavemiel/gifts).



> For my lovely giftee, [Yavemiel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/yavemiel), whose prompt was the following:
> 
>  
> 
>  _Jyn and Cassian engaged in any kind of domesticity, from the battle couple type to being grumpy in the morning pre-coffee, I'm not fussy (although I would request one with a happy ending please, I have a weakness)._  
>   
> 
> This was such a joy to write. Thank you for letting me share it with you! :)

****

 

**Without Any Fear (War is Over)**

 

 **Hanna City, Chandrila**  
**Sometime after the re-establishment of the Republic**

 

Early spring frost kisses the windowpane; a faint shimmer of golden glow trickles past the drapes and sprinkles through the threads of their quilt that rests, tucked around his shoulders. His hair is fairer in this light, falling messily around his eyes, curling around her fingers where the tips stroke each strand.

This has always been her favorite time of day - the early-morning hours in the safety and warmth of their bed, legs and arms intertwined, Cassian still snoring softly. She’s always enjoyed looking at him, awake or asleep, but in this state, stripped down with not a care in the world, he seems so much younger, the laugh and worry lines smoothed away.

A warm hand skitters up her side, tracing the scars she wears proudly (she stopped hiding long ago), and she feels a smile blossom across her lips. It matches his own, a blinding ray of sunshine in the privacy of their own little world. The light’s brighter now, and glints off his still-sleepy eyes turning them to the color of her favorite caff.

She whispers a kiss onto the base of his throat and feels the vibration of his laughter as he hauls her flush against him. “Such thinking so early, Jyn,” he mouths against her forehead. As his hands come up to grasp her, she nuzzles against his nose before taking his lips in a proper morning kiss.

It’s mornings like this when she understands the joy of a future stretching out before them, when the promise of a life together feels tangible and real. Even if they were to perish tomorrow (they won’t - tomorrow they’ll be home) having this as the dawn of their final day would be enough.

 

* * *

 

 

Heat and steam filter into their room from the ‘fresher; the splatter of water sluicing down the occupant soothes in its mundanity. He goes about the routine of dressing: shorts, shirt, trousers, socks, then glimpses himself in the reflector. Will he look different tomorrow? Does he look different today? Maybe he’ll cut his hair; maybe he’ll let it grow. If the beard goes will Jyn be disappointed, or will she enjoy that he finally looks his age? Does any of this matter so long as Jyn remains at his side?

The bedding’s stripped and folded into a crate with their clothes when Jyn emerges from her shower, soft and warm and wet. Her dark hair drapes and drips down her bare back as she begins to dress. He can’t help but feather his fingers through the droplets on her smooth, pale skin. Jyn shivers slightly and presses on, only muttering “Distracting, Cassian,” when he replaces his hands with his lips. He laughs, and leans his forehead against the nape of her neck.

They breathe.

After a few moments, he sits back on the bare mattress, and lets her go, and marvels at the methodological similarity between them. Perhaps it’s the years together; perhaps it’s that they’ve always been mostly the same, two mirror images of each other. Everything she was when they first met, is why he fell in love with her. Everything she is, is everything he hopes to be.

And they have time to make it so.

She’s finished dressing, so he stretches a hand to her. “Fulcrum confirmed our arrival. Everything’s set,” he said, drawing her between his knees.

Jyn giggles, light filling the kind pale green of her eyes. “You know, you can call her by her name now.”

He huffs out a laugh to join her. In truth, Jyn’s not wrong. The retired Naboo-turned-Alderaani woman who’d been one of his many handlers during his youth, the handmaiden-spymaster with dozens of adopted spy-children, had tried to get him to do that for years.

Still, “Everything’s arranged and waiting for us. It’s time.”

“When does our ride leave?”

“2030 tonight.”

“Still time to do the --”

“Let’s finish packing, Jyn.”

Those full lips quirk into a smile, and it takes all his internal will not to capture them. Soon, they’ll have time. “Yes, Sir,” she teases.

With the remaining items from their room and ‘fresher are packed in a duffel, so he with the crate and she with the bag close off the suite for the final time. As for the rest of their living quarters, there isn’t much, but two more empty crates await their busy hands, and they set to work in quiet efficiency. They’d long passed the need for words. The partnership they’d practiced in years of war now perfected to silent solidarity.

Cassian chances a glance over at Jyn, focused, yet light, in her intent to set their place to rights. In spite of himself, he smiles. The hope and promise of the future sings off of her, and her constant smile could match that of a thousand stars.

Someday, he’s going to marry this woman.

 

* * *

 

The cargo droid comes to transport their things just in time for them to leave for the festival, and, ultimately, the port. It’s a bit of auspicious timing, their departure falling on the eve of Peace Fete, but fitting, Jyn thinks a bit wistfully. With the future stretching out before them that’s all she feels. Cassian’s dark eyes smile down at her as he fixes her scarf around her head. She kisses his palm and grips his hand tight, twining their fingers as they lead each other down the street.

It’s a cool, misty, quiet night, which makes for many bundled beings around them as they reach the center of town. Several stop them, to say hello or farewell, to offer a hand or a smile. Never once in all of this does Jyn let go of Cassian, nor he to her. They shift into a series of synced positions with each stop: hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm, hand-on-shoulder, arm-around-waist. He’s beautiful in this light, too, with a genial and confident calm that shades his face in a way that’s always set her heart racing. He knows it, too, as evidenced by the wink he slips her way when no one’s looking. She swats him across the stomach and keeps walking.

After one final stop, at the shores of the Silver Sea they lay down their arms. Cassian draws a light from his pocket and adjusts their precious cargo from where Jyn’s spread them at the water line. She scratches a few words on each before reaching for him, and, with outstretched, intertwined hands, they slip each lotus blossom Remembrance candle into the water, one for all who they’ve lost.

Mama and Papa Andor. Lyra. Saw. Galen. Kay. Melshi, Tonc, Sefla, Pao, and the others. Bail Organa.

The sorrow’s faded, but never completely falls away. There’s a kind of comfort in that now, and in the fact that thousands of others have also come. In grief, it seems, no one is alone.

The sand shimmers blue and gray and green against the silver waves that kiss the shore; the candlelight reflects in his dark eyes. Cassian rises to his knees to meet her, to take her in her arms. Her heart stops a moment, remembering the first time he held her this way.

They’ve come so far since then.

 

* * *

 

With the glow of the lights dancing across the water, he gains yet another (constant) appreciation for her eyes, for the green and gold of her irises do, indeed, look like stardust. They still took his breath away. She's still the most beautiful being he's ever known.  She smiles with those full, upturned lips, then drops her head to his chest. The heat of her breath bleeds through his shirt as she sighs heavily, releasing the pain of remembrance into him.

He grasps her shoulder, turns his head into her neck and breathes with her. The ghosts still linger; they always will. He feels their benediction all the same. They’ll be okay. They have each other. This is a beginning.

“I’m proud of you, Cassian,” she whispers. Were it not for the vibration of her words against him, and had he been any further into his own head, he may have missed her blessing to his heart.

There’s a tightness that crosses over his face as his mouth upturns to a smile, as his lips brush against her ear. “All the way, Jyn,” he replies.

He’s never felt such peace.

 

* * *

 

The ramp lowers, and Bodhi appears. One last shuttle mission. “Heard I had a couple of fellow retirees to take with me,” he shouts with a grin.

Jyn darts out of his hold and rushes Bodhi with a gleeful tackle. Cassian stops before them, nods, then turns back. A final look at the life that had created, comforted, crumbled, and reconstructed him. Disparate thoughts threaten to flood and overtake his mind, and he finds himself choking back a faint gasp of indeterminate emotions.

Warm hands press on his arm and slide down the rough fabric of his jacket to clasp his own. Jyn spins into his space, cranes her head up, those incredible loving eyes and soft lips in his face. “All the way, Captain,” she says gently. “Let’s go home.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The retired Naboo-turned-Alderaani woman refers to [Sabé](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sab%C3%A9), the amazing and forgotten handmaiden of my heart, who I’ve headcanoned about in [A Handmaid’s Tale](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3871555) (and others, but AHT is the most canon-compliant). Yes, I poached my own work. Why headcanon when you can’t use it wherever and whenever possible?
> 
> 2\. The [Chandrilan Peace Fete](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5839804) comes from [JadeLotus'](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lotusflower85/pseuds/JadeLotus) Luke and Mara series [A Year in the Life](http://archiveofourown.org/series/235278). Used with permission! I thought Jyn and Cassian’s participation in such an event would be a nice sendoff to their old life and the start of the new.
> 
> 3\. Where they retire to is up to you, but by using Sabé, I was making an oblique reference to Naboo, inspired by [Hooda](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Hooda/pseuds/Hooda)’s [Beyond Our Days](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9838523), which broke me when I first read it. And honestly, Naboo is probably my favorite Star Wars world. But really, Sabé was a woman of the galaxy, so pick your planet.
> 
> 4\. Baze and Chirrut are alive, of course, but elsewhere. They probably meet up. :)
> 
> 5\. I know, I kept Kay dead. Sorry. Like Lando in TLJ, I couldn’t find a place for him to work. (Or maybe he’s just de-activated still? The truth is your author was too chickenshit to try to write him!)


End file.
